Beta release .99 of the Classic CTF mod for Q3A is now available. The public beta includes a grappling hook,
runes, super nailgun, weapons stay, CTF optimized weapons physics, q2 style armor, lightning gun discharging,
match commands, a brand new overtime feature, 16 new crosshairs, new player skins, as well as lots more. Plus 3
new maps with another coming soon.

A new release of Extreme Quake3Arena, a mod that features 8 new weapons, 10 nightmare bots, an off hand grapple hook,
regeneration of your heath and armor, plus more, can be found at The Jedi Yoda's Q3 Hut. This mod sounds like it is not for the faint at heart!

The BackBurner has been working overtime to bring you 8 new Q3A map reviews.
These aren't your normal reviews since they are all remakes of other game maps!
The maps available for your consumption are:

The new version 3.16 of Fightclub offering a full install and an upgrade from v3.10 is out at the Fightclub site.
This release fixes a few problems with the recent 3.10 release. Specific changes in
this version:

For those of us who are lucky enough to have a 256 G-Force card, this news is for you!
The NV15-Demo, used as a benchmark tool on many review sites, is on the 3DCenter site.
Now you will be able to check it out your own card and see the results for yourself.

GameIDE 2.4, with support for programming your own software, compiling
QVMs for Quake 3 and compiling dlls for other games, has been released at
the GameIDE site.

The new version allows people to
customize compiling however they like, they can make the LCC compiler
compile game dlls, or dos/windows exes, all the user has to know is the
command lines, the current version hasn't been tested with many other game
dlls yet, but soon will be, but right now it can compile most of the dlls
with the lcc compiler, maybe the source might need a little change.

A new Q3 Radio version 1.0 has been released. This takes the mod that lets you use 38 pre-recorded radio messages to
standard Deathmatch, Teamplay and CTF gameplay out of testing and into its first real release to the public.

Gamesmack.org has received some exclusive screenshots and images from the next
'unreleased' update to Quake 3 Fortress as well as an awesome interview with the
Lead Artist, Fluffy gIMp. If what is to be seen here is any indication of what to
expect in the next release of Q3 Fortress, it will be nothing short of amazing! Skip your
double-bypass operation and point your browser, here.

Loaded Q3A version 0.92 Beta, the configurable mod for Q3A, is now available for download adding support for weapon, ammunition, powerup and CTF Flag dropping, improved bot respawn protection AI and fixes a few bugs including team chat.

A Sarge wallpaper is now available on the q3a.de website. It was painted in Adobe Photoshop. Bitterman
painted it with the standard-tools in 8-9 hours. There are some other excellent Q3A wallpapers on the website you can check out too.

There are two new screenshots at Fusion of one of the new maps included in the
upcoming Tier of Admiration Q3A Mod . The maps name is called Chitinid 13, and takes on a
rather gothic style. Fusion also speaks out to all map authors... If you want to make
a map that can be played with Tier of Admiration (i.e. including a Chaingun, and Ammo
Wrench powerup, mail him at fusion@stomped.com).

The new screenshots and a few others can be found at the bottom of the Admiration section on the Fusion page.

Christian Antkow, level designer for id software, updated his .plan saying he is looking for a Win32 port of the unix top command and is asking for suggestions or for someone to point him in the right direction for
remote process management under Win2k.

Here is his .plan update in its entirety:

I'm looking for a Win32 port of the unix top command. We're phasing out
our IRIX box, and top was a way we could tell if anyone else is BSPing on
the machine. Since moving to Win2k for our main BSP-cruncher, we've sort of
lost the ability to accurately tell who is bsping on the machine or what
processes are running remotely, short of running to the server room and
bringing up the graphical task manager.

I've tried using various ports of ps for Win32, but they just don't work all
that well.

If anyone can offer some suggestions or point me in the right direction for
remote process management under Win2k, I'd greatly appreciate it (A cursory
search of the web didn't come up with very much).

Hot on the heals of their first release, the never sleeping author of Quake III Radio has another update to the program that lets you add radio messages to Q3A.
Test 0.2 now has 38 radio messages and the mod is now
playable.

Version 3.10 of Fightclub has now been released. This version includes a new keyboard
definition system for european (azerty keyboard) users, numerous bug fixes, and
built-in support for Q3Fortress, T.E.C. and Alliance CTF - bringing the number of mod
supported by Fightclub to over 30.

The full install, and an upgrade from version 3.04, are available here.

In case you haven't seen it yet, Fightclub is the most comprehensive Quake 3
configuration and launch tool available. You can check the Fightclub website for more information.

GlitterKill has posted 4 new wallpapers in the last week or so with his Visor wallpaper being the latest one posted yesterday.
The new ones include, Klesk, Lucy, Mynx, and Visor. This brings him up to 7 Q3A wallpapers posted to date and there are other game wallpapers
to check out as well.

Locki, the project leader of the Q3F team sends, the following news about the next beta date and some screenshots they have posted and a preview of some maps that will be included in the next beta release.

The Q3F Team, developers of the team-play based mod for Quake 3 Arena, are
pleased to announce 23 new screenshots and the release date for our next
Beta (1c).

We kick off this update with previews of five new maps due for release in
our next major beta release and an upcoming Dueling Map Pack. Head on over
to the shots page for all the info, including the new command point and
assault style maps we're working on.

We've set the weekend of Saturday May 6th for the release of Beta1c. This
will probably be the last update to Beta1, as we'll then go in to hiding
while we work like mad on Beta2 :) Beta1c should address a number of issues
that players are currently experiencing with gameplay and bugs, plus include
some new content in the form of art and sound fx. We're also doing
everything we can to resolve the current problems that Mac users are
experiencing and hope to have this fixed for Beta1c too.

As always we'd love to get some feedback on our new site content. Why not
drop by #q3f on either Quakenet, Gamesnet or Enthergame IRC networks, or
leave us a message on our Forums.

The Razerzone and R|POV have combined to bring you the Razerzone Screenshot
Contest. Prizes include a Boomslang 1000 mouse, full versions of Battlezone II and Star Trek
Armada, and much more.

All you have to do to enter is send in an in-game screenshot before May 31,
2000 from any PC game you would like. The entries will be judged by the R|POV staff and the funniest entries
will win! Click here for more information.

Q3Offline version 00.04.22.00 has been released. Q3Offline is a utility that lets you separately configure your bots in Q3A so you can fine tune your single player experience. The new version gets rid of the .ini file format (because of size limits) and changes them to a binary format.
The author says you will still be able to use the old files and the program will ask you if you want to save it in the new format.

After fixing a small bug in version 2.2, GameIDE 2.3, designed as a alternative to Visual C++ to be used for game coding,
has been released and is ready for download. Like the last version, this one is for all users.

After several years of production delays, John Romero's Quake II engine game Daikatana has gone gold according to Eidos Interactive.
Here is a cut from the press release:

Daikatana is a classic John Romero adventure combining innovative gameplay with fast
and furious fragging mayhem. Your character Hiro Miyamoto is joined by 2 computer
controlled side-kicks, the beautiful Mikiko Ibihara and Superfly Johnson, who aid you in
your quest across four time periods to set history straight.

Planetq3.com is back in business after a short one month shutdown. They have added a new face lift to the site and are continually adding content.
They offer news, editorials, gaming guides, and more. If you are in the neighborhood, maybe you should drop by!

GameIDE 2.2, designed as a alternative to Visual C++ to be used for game coding,
has been released. This new version now has a whole
new workspace type, similar to VC++, in which every file has
to be added to the workspace and the program generates
compile command based on the files. This version also has a improved UI, other little
enhancements, and the new features are for all users.

For those of you who were wondering what the Quake 3 Fortress mod was really all about, Mod Headquarters has an in depth review you should check out.
The review analyzes the mod in the 5 following categories: Sound, Models, Gameplay, Maps, and Bugs. The mod received an overall review rating of 36 out of 50 possible points.

There is a mod review of the Alchemy mod up on quake3mods.net. It takes a look at the features of the mod, talks about the gameplay, gives us some screenshots, and rates the mod with and overall score of 80.

Planet Quake and Quake3World have both been given the exclusive scoop direct
from id Software's Marty Stratton on what's
going to be in the upcoming mission pack for Q3A, set to be released soon. In the article they mention at least 3 new game types, new weapons, new models, and skins.
Marty also reminds us that "this is the first mission pack developed by id Software since the Master
Levels for Doom pack." There are also screenshots from the upcoming mission pack.

LAN Game Manager version 1.0, formally known as Q3ALook, has been released. This utility locates Quake 2, Quake 3 Arena, Half-Life and Unreal Tournament games on your LAN or cable network and includes a chat client and a "player watch" that notifies you when one of your buddies is playing on a server.

Ęstats v4.38 has been released with a slew of new features. Ęstats is a log file analyser for 3D Shooters with Stats/Ranking output in HTML that covers
most of the popular games out there including Q3A. This new version has updated support for Unreal Tournament, and Counter Strike 6.

True Gamers has an interview with the Australian map maker Jude who is most
known for his Quake3 Arena map Q3JDM8 which was recently used in final of a
high profile event in Paris, France called LAN-Arena 4 and is now being discussed as
a possible map in the upcoming CPL Europe. The interview deals with his history as a map maker, and his views on basically everything within that field.

A new beta version of Loaded Q3A has been released.
Beta version 0.9 addresses some bug fixes and adds quite a few new
features to the program. Loaded Q3A is a very configurable server-side modification for
Quake III Arena that gives you a greater ability to run a server exactly the way you want.

Hellhound's new Quake III Arena strategy writer Krash has written a strategy
guide for Peej's Q3 Addiction.
He gives tips on how to really whup ass on
multiplayer,
or put the smack down on the bots AI in Q3 Addiction! Do you want to learn how to really
dominate
on this masterpiece? Read the guide!

A new version of Quake III Bot Designer (version 1.3) has been released on the authors website with a lot of new features added.
Q3BD is a Q3 utility designed to assist modelers by adding bot support to their models including weapon preferences, skills, etc..

A new server-side mod released today (no client required),
Flagmatch v0.5, and was designed to cure many
flaws
in gameplay for team-DM and tourney mode in Q3. In FM, number of players
totally irrelevant, as is the map size! Camping is useless and "runaway
tactics" in 1-on-1 games won't work; these problems are all solved simply
with the introduction of a flag to each Q3DM level that gives points when someone
touches it.

Alliance Games is very exited about what this
could do for Quake 3 Team-DM and Tourney-style gameplay, so if you are hosting an
empty server, spice it up with this intuitive game and maybe you'll have a
crowd. Flagmatch v0.5 is 600k.

The Razer-CPL tournament is now over, with Fatality walking
away with the top prize of $40,000 and Makaveli picking up 2nd
and $20,000. Korean ace PowerK came in 3rd to take $10,000
home with him across the Pacific - an impressive result in his
first really big international tournament.

Full "play by play" reports on all the final matches of today are
now up on EuroGamer as part of their on-going coverage of the big
event. Expect more photographs, interviews and analysis over
the next couple of days as well.

GameIDE 2.1, a release which fixes many bugs, has been released at
http://www.planetquake.com/q3ide/. This version is the most stable version
of Q3IDE/GameIDE and has been thoroughly tested, anyone planning on using
this program should download either the upgrade or the full install.

"After a bit of a dry spell due to some hardware problems the Q3Arena.Com
NavCenter has just completed a major update and is better than ever!

We
listened when our users told us what YOU wanted in a search engine, and
we've added a number of new features including an online bookmark system,
integrated website translation, game specific searching, and more!

With more
than 1100 links in the new database, the Q3Arena.Com NavCenter is now the
LARGEST search engine on the Internet dedicated to Quake players! Head over
to the NavCenter at http://navcenter.q3arena.com and let Drako know what you
think!"

The Q3F Team, developers of the Q3F team-play based mod for Quake 3, have announced
the release of the Q3F Beta-1b update.

The Beta-1b update (2.8mb) includes over 80 bug fixes, game-play tweaks, and
team-play improvements, not to mention some new sounds, graphics and a
complete overhaul of all the documentation. Head on over to their Files Page for the mirrors list.

The documentation for the mod is now in HTML, you can also read it online while
you download the update. The whole thing is available here and includes a complete
list of all the new changes.

NameKeeper v1.2 have been released by The Quake Times.
This new version fixes a tons of bugs and adds a couple of new features. NameKeeper
v1.2. is
one of the most popular fun-name editors on the net, and the download size is very low
(only 192kb). You can grab the file
here.

Artist Willi Hammes from Germany has some of the best looking wallpapers I have ever seen for Q3A or any other game for that matter.
He has done a very nice professional job on them and they are fit for kings! You can see those cool wallpapers here.

Fast on the heals of version 1.3, the people at Coded have
released version 1.4 which has a few bug fixes, "the addition of being able to continue
a previous search, and a replace dialog for replacing all occurences of a
string in a file".

The Q3F Team, developers of the team-play based modification for Quake 3,
have announced the release date for Q3F Beta-1.2.

Saturday 15th April at around 12 Midnight, they will be
releasing an update that will include "a large number of bug fixes and game-play
tweaks, plus some new sounds and a complete documentation overhaul
(including custom CFGs). It should address a large number of the current
issues, and make the whole experience of playing and running Q3F even
better."

"To keep players and servers in synch, this prerelease announcement is to
let as everyone know that Coliseum2 Beta 1.6 will be made available on
Friday April 14th. To minimize download size and time, the new beta
will be made available as an update only.

Beta 1.6 Updates/Fixes:
--Fixed current rune held being covered up by the lag-o-meter.
--When having no weapons, show "No Weapon" on the status bar.
--Rotate models on the Models selection screen (well... they just kinda
wobble).
--Implemented health and armor banning/replacement.
--Optional hook max time to prevent hook camping.
--Optional hook force release when receiving damage.
--Do not show looser in Tournament games on podium (no second place in
Tournament games).
--Do not count Tournament loss when leaving during warm-up.
--Returning from spectating does not reset score or time. Time counting
will resume.
--"Flawless Victory" reward sound if won match without getting fragged.
Mortal Kombat announcer option only.
--Optional team hook color for red and blue teams.
--Optional chat protection. No frags awarded for a cheap kill.
"Window of opportunity" to prevent people from dropping console to cheat
when about to get fragged.
--The most kick-ass implementation of anti-camping ever!"

A new version of the Quake3 Coding Environment, Coded, has been released.
This new version makes it easier for new users to select the mod path by
providing a dropdown list to choose from. You can get this version here.

Urban Software has an in depth Q3A coding tutorial on their site that teaches you how to add new
files to the compiling process, add new items to the client HUD and how to get the
server to pass specific information to the client.
This could be really useful by allowing you to know where your teammates are.

Paul Jaquays updated his .plan with some information on Quake 3 editing and where to get
answers to your editing questions. His suggestion is for you get them from the Quake3World Editing Forum.

Here's some of what he has to say.

"A day rarely goes by in
which a newcomer to the forum needs to have a basic question or two answered. If
you're just getting started in Quake III map making or you're finding that the
on-line tutorials aren't providing the specific answers that you need to know, drop
in to Editing Forum. Questions get answered and there's usually a lot of great
discussion about map making. Sometimes questions are answered by the last mapper who
asked the same question. But there are some serious experts in the science and art of
mapping, shader programming, texture creation and tool making who hang out on the forum too.

And did I mention that all this occurs in a nearly flame-free environment that's
tends to stay on the topic at hand?

Ever wonder what's happening with PainKeep for Q3A?
Quakehelp.com has an informative interview with Team Evolve about PainKeep Arena, the successor to the original PainKeep for Quake. There is some cool info and three "never before seen by human eyes" screenshots.

Quake III Alchemy's second beta is now available. This mod which supports CTF, FFA, TeamDM, and Tournament
modes, is based on randomly spawned gems instead of ruins.
The gems power up the player or the whole team when they collect them all.
The mod keeps track of frags on a scoreboard and will also have an efficiency rating and a frags per hour rating on the scoreboard in future releases.

"Jailbreak is a Teamplay MOD for Quake 3 Arena. A game of jailbreak consists of
two teams, Blue and Red. When killed, you are transported to the enemies jail.
While in jail, fellow teammates can free you by hitting the release trigger, or you
can work together and use an escape hole located inside of the jail to gain your
freedom. Once a team has all opponents in jail they are Executed, this being your
ultimate goal."

The first release of auxiliary dimension's first mod, alive has been released and is now available for
download.
Here is what they have to say about alive.

"alive is a fairly simple twist on regular death match. In alive, if you have more than
10 life, you steadily lose life until you reach 10. Additionally, no life spawns in the
levels. However, if when someone dies, life spawns where he or she died. So the only
way to stay alive is to kill people.

This twist to the game-play adds a whole way of thinking of deathmatch. In a
traditional deathmatch game, most people try to build up weapons, armor, and life
before going on the attack. When playing alive, you don't have the luxury to spend
your time waiting for items. This leads players to confront others sooner, increasing
the speed of the game.

The life that is spawned when a player dies depends on who that player is and
who killed him. Here's how it works: if you kill someone who has more frags than you
(someone who's doing better), he will spawn a 50 life. If you kill someone lower than
you, only 25 life is spawned. And if you kill the leader, he gives you a Mega Health.
So, you are rewarded more for killing better players. A final note: anyone can grab
the life that spawns, not just the attacker. There's nothing like sneaking in and
stealing a Mega Health after watching a heated battle."

The Quake III Fury mod is now available on the Quake III Furry website.
This fast and furious mod is described as "simply
Quake gone crackhead. You move
a lot faster (almost 2x speed). There
is a new, fairer scoring system
(based on Decimal), and power-up
rewards."

The first "solid" release of ClockBot version 0.2, is now available for download. The authors
describe it as:
"a custom Quake III Arena Bot, Complete with new
user Interface, art, sounds, and a new Bot AI that is more
advanced than the standard Q3A bot, ClockBot has been
compiled with Duel & Tourney modes in mind, so that it will help
you tune up your Q3A gaming skill's while off-line..." They are also claim that "v0.3 is going to be an eye opener".

GameSpy Industries have just released GameSpy3D v2.20 for regestered users and is now avaliable for download. For those of you who do not know, GameSpy3D is the most widely used online gaming utility on the planet with more than 4,000,000 users.

New in this version is:

Support for the new Rogue Spear "Urban Operations" mission pack

Support for "Codename Eagle"

Quake 3 Arena mod support

"Auto-Favorites": servers are added to your favorites list after you
play on them 5 times

GameSpy talks about getting a degree in gaming and the implications this might have on the whole world.
Imagine, if you can, getting a degree in gaming and having your parents praise you for spending countless hours of your time on games instead of having them tell you what kind of lazy, no good, bum you are!
If you were ever the kind of person that said at one time " God, I really need to do this for a living!"
then this article is for you!

Coliseum2 is a mod for Quake3 which the authors claim "has brought salvation to
so many former Quake2 Lithium2 players... with power-up runes
remnant of Lithium2's and a red laser grapple hook and many fantastic and very
original features, Coliseum2 is a legend in the making!"

You can find screenshots, tips and faq's, a manual, servers, and more on this mod here.

We received news from the SugerShack that there is an interview with John Carmack on some of the details
about the new extra levels that will be included with the game and if they will be available for us.
You can check and see what he has to say about the levels and other things here.

Q3IDE version 1.5 has been released for download. This is the first stable release, with either little or no bugs. Check out the screenshots by clicking here. Q3IDE is a program intended to be an alternative to using Visual C++.

EuroGamer's coverage of the 75 player EuroLAN event which
took place in Brighton, UK last weekend is now up, featuring match
reports and commentary.

Some of the top Quakers in Britain were there, including the UK
Razer-CPL qualifier winner Blokey and other well-known players
such as Billox, Silent and Kalliath. For the full story, check out their
coverage on EuroGamer!

For those of you who use ArenaSpy 1.0
for their server browser and found that it doesn't work anymore, news of an easy fix
for the utility concerning the Q3A point release is now up on their site.
You can get it to work by moving the uix86.dll from your main Quake 3 directory
to the baseq3 subdirectory.

SavageUK Q3Log, based upon Qlog, a Quake 2 log backup utility by [BBC]Mattcake, is
a console log backup utility designed to save your game log information instead of having it overwritten.
If you have ever wanted to show someone something that happened in a game or compile
"gibstats", but found that the log had been lost, then this utility is for you. You will never have to lose that console log again!

The AUI mod for Quake III Arena new version 1.2 is now available on the Spine Design
site. This client-side only modification offers an advanced user-interface "with better
skin and model management and new map management." This new version
uses the new version 1.16n Q3A source code, and has a few extra things added as well.

The public release of the Freeze Tag 1.2e source code for Q3A is now available on the The Freeze Tag page. As an added bonus, they have also posted five
new tutorials on how to use the code, they have described as helpful even if you are interested
in just Q3A coding.

QuakeCon 2000 just opened its doors and will be accepting online applications to its LAN party on May the 5th.
This year they plan on having 2900 people at the Mesquite Convention Center and Exhibition Hall in Mesquite, Texas. It will be bigger than ever and certainly could be the largest LAN
party on the planet to date.